Maldon Town Hall will no longer be offering Covid-19 testing kits and will close the service today (Wednesday, 20 January) at 3.30pm.

Any completed tests not returned by then will have to be posted for testing and cannot be left at the Town Hall.

The withdrawal of the service at the Town Hall is due to "a change in Government policy on community Covid-19 testing" and comes little more than a week after the it was announced that the building on Market Hill would be used as a location where people without symptoms could get a test.

Instead, it was confirmed yesterday that asymptomatic residents of Maldon district (those without symptoms) can now book 'fast' tests - lateral flow tests - at West Maldon Community Centre in Sunbury Way.

Anyone who has a positive result from one of these tests will then be required to self-isolate and asked to take a PCR test to confirm the result.